I’m about to embark on one of the most difficult journeys I’ve ever made.

Deep breath.

Here I go.

I’m giving up alcohol in the new year.

There. It’s out. It’s public. No going back.

There are a couple of reasons behind my decision.

Reason number one: I simply want to see if I can do it. After all, it’s a big old challenge. Booze is the lubricant that greases the wheels of new friendships, flirting and one night stands. How different will life be without that crutch to fall back on?

Reason number two: I desperately want to give up smoking.

My problem with smoking and drinking is that as soon as I get even a whiff of an alcoholic substance, I’m overcome with the craving to stick a fag in my gob and puff away.

This would be fine if I could limit myself to social smoking, but for me, it’s all or nothing. It starts with accepting every social invitation I get just so I have an excuse to smoke. Then before long, it’s crept back into my daily routine like bindweed in an untended garden.

Reason number three: As I hurtle further along the road of thirtysomething-ness, the effects of too much beer and wine tend to hang around a lot longer than a simple next-day hangover. Namely on my belly.

Having spent my entire twenties being the envy of my friends because I had abs you could bounce a fifty pence piece off of, this is, as you can imagine, somewhat horrifying.

So all in all, a couple of really good reasons to ban the booze.

So why does the thought of a life without alcohol strike utter terror into my heart?

Far from it being socially acceptable to be teetotal, most people look at you like you’ve grown an extra head when you ask for a soft drink instead of a beer.

Having just spent Christmas on antibiotics and therefore tipple-free, I found myself getting mildly irritated as my family and friends slowly became louder and gigglier as the day wore on. I felt like I was on a different wavelength.

And what is this going to do for my sex life? No longer will I have the ‘confidence’ to walk up to fit boys in bars and devastate them with (what I believe to be) my witty repartee.

Oh, Lord.

Am I going to become *gasp* boring?

Before I go and hurl myself into the Thames, let’s look at the positives:

I’m going to lose my rapidly expanding beer belly

I might make it to the gym on a Saturday morning for once

I might actually kick the fags for good

I’m going to be a hell of a lot healthier (see points 2 and 3)

I won’t waste my weekends dying on the sofa with a hangover

I’ll stop snogging guys I wouldn’t fancy in a million years if I was sober

I won’t wake up in a strange bed and recoil in horror at the person lying next to me

I might actually make it through a party without creeping off to a bedroom somewhere to crash out for an hour

I can laugh at my friends when they get into a state and remind them of what they did when I see them the next day

Hmm, this is actually looking a lot better than it did a few minutes ago.

I’m sick of paying six quid every single day, I’m sick of putting on clothes that should smell like washing powder but smell stale and old instead. I’m sick of having yellow fingers, I’m sick of getting jittery when I run out or haven’t had one for an hour or so. I’m sick of having no money at the end of the month, I’m sick of the fact that given the choice as to whether I eat or smoke, I’ll choose the cigarettes every time.

So can someone please tell me why I stood in the middle of Soho Square yesterday after a fairly successful week of abstinence, inhaling from a fag with a look of such bliss on my face you’d have thought I was getting the blow job of my life?

I had my first cigarette at the age of eleven. After mercilessly baiting my father for as long as I can remember about wanting to smoke like him, he sat in front of me, lit a cigarette and told me to finish the whole one in front of him.

So that’s exactly what I did. Perhaps I had been fortified from passive smoking, perhaps my natural stubbornness drove me to show old Pa I wasn’t going to be beaten, but there was no coughing, no spluttering, not even a gag. I happily puffed away like I had been doing it all my life.

And guess what? I enjoyed it.

I know when I took it up full time at the age of seventeen I was probably trying to fit in, but I felt like smoking suited me. It felt good having a fag in my hand. Smoking appeals to the bad boy image, it smacks of not playing by the rules, of being a bit edgy. Think James Dean, the cast of Grease, Sharon Stone in the interrogation scene from Basic Instinct. You wouldn’t take any of them home to meet your mother, but they’d sure as hell give you a good time in the sack.

Fast forward thirteen years and I’ve decided I’m done with the demon darts. It’s not sexy, it stinks. It’s not cool to be standing outside in the freezing cold in winter because you’re banished by law from every bar and club. Shamefully walking into the off licence at the end of the road with my last £2.50 and buying the cheapest pack of ten on the shelf is just plain sad.

So why do I kick them time and time again just to go and ruin it all for a few minutes of feeling like a “bad boy” again?

Am I so utterly seduced by the marketing that I’m still clinging desperately to the rebelliousness of my teens? Would I really feel that incomplete without cigarettes? Am I so weak that I can’t cope with just a few days of feeling a bit uncomfortable while I kill of a few nicotine receptors?